Hi Sunshine,

Yes, I'm busy too. And still struggling to stay awake in the evenings. I think I'm getting a bit burned out with this subject; I like to put the world to rights now and then, as my husband calls it, which usually means a chat in which I share my frustrations with someone and then move on. Politics isn't a permanently lit fire within me and I'm not actually hugely passionate about it. I feel largely powerless because the political system is so distant from the life of the average person. I do advocate a strong ethical government, ideally, but I also think that politicians should be more accountable to the people who vote for them. They shouldn't be in politics as a career, they shouldn't have to be wealthy in order to stand for office, and they shouldn't even be members of a political party. They should be free to vote the way their constituents want them to, not the way the whips tell them.

While we have political parties, though, I have to say I'm at a loss. Another frustration. Old Labour is gone and I have never liked Tony Blair's "modernised" Thatcher wannabes. Tories? Never. Lib Dems? What do they even stand for? Voting Green would probably be my option of choice. Locally though, we are on the fringes of a conservative rural area and the only candidates we ever get for local elections are Tories and Lib Dems.

About taxes -- they really can be a powerful tool for influencing society. Maybe they need to be used more judiciously. Already there are high taxes on things that are "luxuries," and unhealthy ones at that -- alcohol and cigarettes. It seems silly to lift taxes on those, we already have a drinking problem as a nation. I think it would be very innovative to tax junk food heavily and at the same time subsidise healthy foods like fruit and veg. And taxes can be used as incentives for so many things. Why not give tax money, or tax breaks, to workplaces that encourage green transport, or give employees access to a gym on or off premises. Currently I'm being encouraged to marry and have a family because I get married couples' allowance, child tax credit and child benefit, though I can't honestly say any of those things make much difference to me. Being American, though, I still can't get over the government giving me a bit of money every month to help me raise my child. I've spent it on things like clothes, shoes, vitamins, etc, and I'm still laughing because Uncle Sam would never dream of helping me in that way. Other EU countries are more generous still. We are one of the only nations where stay-at-home mothers don't get some kind of government stipend to encourage them to raise their own children in the early years. It was very hard for us to do that for 5 years and rather lonely too, because so many other mothers go straight back to work.

I won't argue with your comments about the NHS wasting money. I would still like to see changes from within though. They need to use a little more vitamin C and a lot less medication. I also won't argue that London is reputed to have some pretty bad schools, but there's a host of reasons for that. A big one is that teachers are priced out of the housing market there and good staff are hard to recruit. There's actually no other good reason I can think of as to why a multicultural school should be failing simply because it's multicultural and in a city. There are some outstanding multicultural schools here in Leicester -- and some with dreadful reputations as well. If I had the money, I might be tempted to send my daughter to a private school, but only because I think class sizes in public schools are too large. I'd rather see her in a class of 15 than 30. But her teachers are lovely and I think they do good work with the children. I think I'd also have issues about the sorts of people she'd be mixing with in a private school. Personally I'd rather she was with ordinary people from a variety of backgrounds, which is a principle of comprehensive education.

I noticed that Russ started a new area for political discussions. Doubtless that is where this kind of discussion belongs. I'm not sure I feel like going there to be honest though -- i think I've said my peace for now <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> As it is, we go from one day to the next and not a lot changes in the grand scheme of things.